The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) in partnership with key stakeholders have developed a five-year vessel demand profile for oil and gas operations in the country.

The profile was based on data received from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the National Petroleum Investment Management Services in October 2018.

Simbi Wabote, the Executive Secretary of NCDMB, disclosed this to newsmen in Lagos State on Friday.

He said that the Nigerian maritime industry was galvanising stakeholders’ engagement for sustainable growth.

Wabote said the NCDMB had equally identified the types of vessels that local operators in the shipping business should purchase that could guarantee good businesses and returns on investments.

According to him, analyses carried out using types of vessel categories showed that the top five vessels in projected demand between 2019 and 2023 would be tugboats, security patrol vessels, jargon barges and crew boats, among others.

“These ships account for 66 per cent of marine vessel requirements. Crew boats, security vessels, guiding support vessels account for 49 per cent of vessels that will be in demand over the period 2019 to 2023.

“Accommodation vessels, supply vessels, anchor handling truck vessels, tug boats, barges, will account for 23 per cent of the demand in the oil and gas industry.

“In the next five years, industry’s spend on tugboats and other vessels is projected to be $1.6bn or 51 per cent of total spend, and the annual spend is projected to be $641m over 519 marine contracts in Nigeria between 2019 and 2023,” he said.

He said that from the outlook, the vessels listed should occupy the focus of Nigerians who aspired to own vessels in the coming years.

Wabote listed other areas of intervention of the board to include the $200m Maritime Intervention Fund launched in partnership with the Bank of Industry to provide a single-digit interest loan to Nigerian oil and gas service providers.

“Based on the feedback from our stakeholders, we recently secured approval to increase the limit of loans for refinancing to $10m from the initial $2m. We hope that it would free up some of the highly leveraged assets of the industry.

“We understand our kind of business moves with the oil price.

“As at the end of October 2018, $21m had been given out as loans to beneficiaries, but there is still significant head room for disbursement to interested applicants.” he said.

He said that a committee had also been set up between NCDMB and the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency to harmonise standards for categorisation of marine vessels.

“Such vessel harmonisation has been concluded to agree on the definitions of various nomenclatures of marine categorisation,” he said. (NAN)